Repeal Georgia Nuclear Tax

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Tag Archives: Nuclear Watch South

by Gloria Tatum
9/22/18 APN – On Thursday, September 20, 2018, activists insisted that the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG), a minority co-owner of the pending two new nuclear reactors 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle, finally abandon the insanity that is their continued involvement in the project.

Since the previous report by Atlanta Progressive News on the Vogtle co-owners, Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) has now sued MEAG over the exploding financial cost of continuing construction on Plant Vogtle 3 and 4.

JEA wants out of its Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) which it has with MEAG to buy energy from Vogtle 3 and 4 for the next twenty years.

JEA claims that Vogtle has become too expensive and they can get energy cheaper from other companies in Georgia.

At the MEAG Power Board Meeting, JEA offered MEAG a way out of the Vogtle money vortex and still meet its contractual obligations to the co-owners and PPA partners.

3/27/18 ATLANTA — Representatives of the Stop CWIP Coalition delivered a petition containing more than 3,000 signatures to Governor Nathan Deal’s office in support of the recent passage of Senate Bill 355 to sunset the Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act of 2009 with the Vogtle 3 & 4 project. The bill is awaiting the governor’s signatures to become law.

The groups delivered the petition entitled “Stop the Nuclear CWIP Tax” in support of Governor Deal’s anticipated signature to ratify Senate Bill 355 which sunsets the Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act of 2009. The controversial law legalized collection of advance payments for Vogtle 3 & 4 which are under construction in Burke County. The nuclear tariff has been charged on residential and small business electric bills since 2011. The additional Vogtle reactors are currently less than half-built and are at least $5 billion over budget and five years behind schedule. Senate Bill 355 easily passed both the Senate and the House and now awaits Governor Deal’s signature.

by Gloria Tatum
(APN) ATLANTA 2/15/18 — The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) is facing a new lawsuit, while Georgia Power is facing a possible investigation – both in connection with challenges to the continued construction of new nuclear reactors 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle.

Three groups–the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), Partnership for Southern Equity, and Georgia Interfaith Power and Light–have filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday, February 12, 2018 against the PSC.

The Petitioners claim the PSC’s December 21, 2017 decision and holiday gift to Georgia Power to continue Vogtle 3 and 4 violated Georgia law and the PSC’s own governing rules, making their decision illegal.

The PSC’s decision ensures Georgia Power Company billions of dollars in additional profits, while saddling ratepayers with billions in additional expenses.

The Commission’s decision put the interest of Georgia Power’s shareholders ahead of the interest of ratepayers, especially low-income customers.

Finally, there is a lawsuit that asserts the obvious – that the so-called “Public Service” Commission is and has been working as an agent of Georgia Power for years instead of protecting the ratepayers.

As previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, the PSC vote overruled its own staff’s recommendations, which stated that to go forward would hurt ratepayers financially and reward Georgia Power’s bad management with additional profits.

by Tom Corwin
10/11/17 AUGUSTA: A conservative Georgia group is calling out Georgia Power on the cost overruns on two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle and wants to repeal a state law that allows the company to pass along those costs to ratepayers while construction is underway.

The call puts the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots on the side of some more liberal groups opposing the project but President Debbie Dooley said some issues appeal to all sides. The group is also vowing to make it an issue in next year’s Public Service Commission elections.

The Atlanta Tea Party opposed Senate Bill 31 in 2009 that allowed Georgia Power to recoup the nuclear expansion costs at Vogtle and has supported efforts since to repeal it. But with the failure of a somewhat similar project in South Carolina at the V.C. Summer nuclear site, and the ensuing fallout over its ongoing burden on those ratepayers, Dooley said she believes there is renewed momentum to make the change in Georgia.

“I think there is a bigger demand for it this time because it is in the news,” she said. In the past, “I think people wanted to give Georgia Power the benefit of the doubt. But there’s no benefit of the doubt now.”

by Gloria Tatum
6/11/17 (APN) ATLANTA — Georgia Public Service Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald (District 4) filed a motion to give Georgia Power ratepayers a break by asking the company to suspend collecting the nuclear construction tax, or CWIP.

But it had as much chance as a snowball in hell of being honored by the PSC or Georgia Power. The Commission voted to hold the motion and refer it to the Georgia Attorney General for an opinion, in a four to one vote on June 06, 2017.

“I move that the Commission request that the Company voluntarily agree that as of July 1, 2017, it will stop collecting any financing charges under the Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery (NCCR) tariff,” McDonald’s motion read.

“Effective July 1, 2017, the Company will utilize Allowance for Funds Used During Construction (AFUDC) accounting treatment on the Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) balance of all Unit 3 and 4 capital costs,” the motion stated.

The expansion of a Georgia nuclear power plant that fired up dreams for a carbon-free nuclear renaissance in the U.S. has turned into a quagmire of setbacks, financial woes, uncertainty and frustration.by Pam Wright
5/23/17: Cornelia Stumpf has had enough.

The Savannah resident joins more than 2 million other Georgia Power customers who collectively pay a reported $23 million a month for the construction of two new and highly controversial nuclear reactors that may never produce a single kilowatt of energy.

The new reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, 30 minutes south of Augusta, were the first approved in the U.S. in 30 years, and they were expected to revive the nation’s nuclear power industry, ushering in an era of carbon-free energy to help control climate change. But the expansion at Plant Vogtle has become an expensive boondoggle for the company and its customers.

“What is upsetting to me is, in the end, I’m just one person and it’s added up to $700 in the six years since they began charging it,” says Stumpf, a conscientious consumer of energy who is speaking from her office on a 90-degree afternoon in May with the air conditioner off.

Georgia Power, a subsidiary of the Southern Company, implemented the 7 percent surcharge in 2011 after lawmakers gave the utility permission to charge customers for the construction of the project. The charge appears on consumer’s bill as “Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery.” So far Georgia Power has reportedly collected nearly $2 billion from the surcharge.

by Gloria Tatum
(APN) ATLANTA 4/24/17— On Tuesday, April 18, 2017, Glenn Carroll, Director of Nuclear Watch South (NWS), filed a request for an emergency public hearing with the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) to seek relief for ratepayers from the Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) tax on customers’ electric bills.

Georgia Power ratepayers have been paying in advance for the construction of Plant Vogtle nuclear reactor units 3 and 4 since 2009, because of the Georgia Legislature’s approval of CWIP via Senate Bill 31, which subverts the traditional ratemaking process and undermines the notion of Georgia Power shareholders taking any risk.

by Kristi Swartz
4/14/17: Scana Corp. executives might extend a contract with Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC as the utility decides whether to complete its multibillion-dollar nuclear power expansion in South Carolina.

Meanwhile, Southern Co.’s Georgia Power unit has yet to decide whether it needs more time to figure out how to proceed with its twin reactors under construction in Georgia.

by Gloria Tatum
(APN) ATLANTA 4/5/17— Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the designer and builder of the AP1000 nuclear reactors under construction in Georgia and South Carolina, has filed for Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy, putting the future of the nuclear power industry in jeopardy.

Clean energy advocates hope this bankruptcy will be a wooden stake in the heart of the so-called “nuclear renaissance” that finally kills it, including the incomplete new reactor units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle.

by Gloria Tatum
Atlanta 12/14/15 — Georgia Public Service Commissioners struggled to maintain a quorum, and apparently also to stay awake, at Georgia Power’s thirteenth semi-annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring Report (VCM) hearing on December 10, 2015.

Two photographs show Commissioner Stan Wise (District 5) resting his eyes, during one of the many instances in which Atlanta Progressive News observed Wise rest his eyes for a couple minutes or so at a time.